


On the Horizon

by frozenmango



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, High Noon Gothic AU, Multi, Slow Burn, Western AU, i am rightfully gay for both ashe and irelia in their high noon skins, loosely based on canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25439317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenmango/pseuds/frozenmango
Summary: It’s a dark night tonight. Much darker than usual, one would have noticed.Nothing shines past the thick blanket of clouds—well, almost nothing. The eerie light of the Blood Moon paints the arid ghost town of forgotten Hope a murky red. Any normal person living in the Old West would know not to go outside when the Blood Moon is out. Everyone knows when the Blood Moon shines, Hell opens its gates. If you wanted to keep on living, you stayed indoors and don’t invite anyone in. That’s the unwritten law. Everyone follows it.Well, save for a select few.
Relationships: Ashe/Xan Irelia, Karma/Xan Irelia, Lucian/Senna (League of Legends)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	On the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> howdy. as in the tags, this story takes place in the High Noon AU of skins for league, and thus, all characters will have those said appearances. i've done my best to stay true to the High Noon canon as much as possible, but of course, with all things, creative liberty will probably be taken. it's been a hot while since i've taken a jab at writing a story intended for multiple chapters, and this is my attempt at building a slow burn. i sure hope that you'll enjoy the first part of this journey

It’s a dark night tonight. Much darker than usual, one would have noticed.

Nothing shines past the thick blanket of clouds—well, almost nothing. The eerie light of the Blood Moon paints the arid ghost town of forgotten Hope a murky red. Any normal person living in the Old West would know not to go outside when the Blood Moon is out. Everyone knows when the Blood Moon shines, Hell opens its gates. If you wanted to keep on living, you stayed indoors and don’t invite anyone in. That’s the unwritten law. Everyone follows it.

Well, save for a select few.

A lone figure stands in the middle of a blackiron gated cemetery. The tombstones are weathered and beaten, cracked and ruined from this unforgiving part of the prairie. The figure’s gold eyes scan her surroundings, the dead grass a dull blood red. Even when she’s just standing there, the air is suffocating, full of bad energy and malicious intent that is just brewing, bubbling underneath the literal surface of the packed earth underneath her feet.

But all she can do is wait…and wait…and wait…

Nothing is happening—at least, not yet.

And then she hears it.

She hears the sound of stone breaking. She pivots, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees a tombstone crumble. A black hand emerges from the ground, sickly green mist emerging from the hole. The figure draws her bow, pulls the string back, and an arrow made from the most brilliant light notches itself. She lets go, and effortlessly, the arrow finds its mark. The hand dissipates into gold dust.

A chuckle echoes in the air.

“Still a sharpshooter I see, huh, Ashe?” a deep voice like gravel rumbles behind her. Ashe twirls around, notching another arrow. She sees a smiling figure holding a large axe, its blade gleaming in the red light of the Moon.

“Darius.” Ashe’s voice is steady as she takes aim.

“Such hostility. Don’t you remember how I so _graciously_ helped you find Hecarim?” His voice is coy. It makes Ashe’s blood boil with rage.

“You did.” Ashe narrows her eyes into a piercing glare. “And you were also working for him.”

Darius laughs louder this time. “Oh, was I? It seems that I forgot that _one_ minor detail.”

“Cut the shit. Where’s Hecarim?”

Darius laughs, louder this time. “Were you expectin’ to find ‘im here?”

Ashe says nothing. If she was being honest, she didn't want to encounter Hecarim at all; if Luck was on her side, Ashe would have been encountering an intermediate Demon she could extract information from.

Darius certainly had information. But to dub him as intermediate would be a far understatement.

“Well, it don’t matter where he is right now, li’l lady.” His face twists into a sneer, his eyes wide with bloodlust as he hoists his axe to point at her, tauntingly. “Because you’re gonna be seein’ him real soon.”

Ashe fires. Her arrow splits off into nine, flying straight at Darius. He spins effortlessly, cutting all of them down. He lunges forward—much faster than Ashe anticipates—and reaches forward to hook Ashe with his axe.

She rolls to the left. She ends her movement in a crouch, firing another arrow. It lodges itself where his right shoulder meets his chest. The golden arrow brightens, searing itself into Darius, the sizzle and smell of burning flesh filling the air. 

He doesn’t flinch as he rips the arrow from his shoulder, and tosses it aside. A glowing, white wound mars his dark figure.

Darius grins.

With two hands he grips his axe, heaves it over his head, and brings it down in a brutal, diagonal swipe. Strands of silver hair take Ashe’s place as she barely jumps out of the way.

Darius wastes no time, lunging forward once again in a relentless attempt to hook Ashe with his axe. Before he can reach out, Ashe swings her right hand as if she’s throwing a hook, and a brilliant Hawk Spirit shoots forward. Ashe closes her eyes before the Spirit explodes in a blinding light. Darius curses and falters. 

Ashe scrambles to her feet and sprints to the farthest tombstone, sliding to a halt. She presses her back against the cool, chiseled stone. Her chest heaves as she tries to catch her breath.

This is bad—Ashe is a ranger, not a fighter. She can barely do anything in close range, and Darius much faster than he was before, no doubt because of Hecarim’s influence. Any distance between them will be closed before she knows it if she’s not careful.

The gears in Ashe’s head turn as she desperately thinks of a plan.

“Don’t hide now, Angel,” Darius jeers. “The fun’s just gettin’ started!”

Something clicks inside Ashe’s head.

She inhales, the cold air burning her lungs. As she silently exhales through her mouth, a small smile creeps onto her face.

He’s right; the fun’s just getting started.

She emerges from her hiding place and sends a Hawk Spirit forward. It flies forward, and explodes in the middle of the cemetery, lighting the entire area. She finds Darius standing where he was before, about twenty or so feet away from her, waiting. 

His head turns in Ashe’s direction. He grins.

“Found ya,” he says.

Ashe breaks into a sprint, skirting along the blackiron fence. She lets out a high-pitched whistle, and black mist materializes and swirls to form a galloping steed. Effortlessly, she mounts it, and takes aim with her bow.

She sees Darius rushing towards her, axe ready for a horizontal swipe. Ashe fires another volley of arrows. Two of them hit their mark; one on his left shoulder, the other on his right thigh. Darius’ grinning face turns into confusion, and then frustration when he notices the frost beginning to form around his wounds, slowing his movements.

“New trick up your sleeve?” He says through gritted teeth.

Ashe curls her lips into a smug smile. “You ain’t the only one with powers.”

Ashe digs her left heel into the side of her horse, and it follows her move. She circles Darius, her aim never faltering as she relentlessly fires flurry after flurry of arrows.

By the time she puts down her bow, Darius is slumped on the ground, countless golden arrows protruding from his back. Black, brackish blood pools around his body, staining the steel of his axe.

Ashe clicks her tongue twice and her steed stops its gait. She stares at the motionless and frost-covered body of Darius, one of the most brutal manhunters the Old West has ever known.

If this was any other man-turned-demon, they would have been dead without a doubt, dissipating into golden dust.

But Darius isn’t weak. He made a direct pact with Hecarim, and Ashe knows that it would take a lot more than her current onslaught to take him down.

“Quit playin’ games, Dari—”

The words are knocked out of her lungs as Ashe is blown off her horse by a sudden force, slamming into a crumbling tombstone. She crumples to the ground, chunks of rock raining down at her. The world spins all around her, and in the distance, she hears her horse whinny with fright and dissipate into mist.

Ashe curses under her breath as she struggles to get up. She tastes the metallic tang of blood, and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand.

And then she sees it.

In the Blood Moon’s light, she sees Darius’ body lift from the ground, sickly green mist rising from the ground and swirling around his body. Ashe’s arrows crumble into black dust, and his white wounds sewing themselves back together with darkness. Darius’ head turns towards Ashe in an inhumane way, his body contorting horrifically to follow the motion. He opens his eyes, and Ashe stares into two pools of deep red malice.

He opens his mouth and lets out a deep roar, far deeper than any human should be capable of. More green mist is siphoned from the ground, and all around her, Ashe can hear more and more tombstones beginning to crumble.

Ashe raises her arms to take aim—wait, her bow. Where is her bow?

Ashe frantically looks around, and spots her weapon five feet away from her. She goes in for a roll, but doesn’t move. She looks down to see two spectral hands gripping tightly at her ankles.

Using all of her strength, Ashe tries to shake off the hands, but to no avail. She feels a burning chill beginning to permeate through her boots.

Panic settles in Ashe’s stomach. She whistles to summon her horse, but nothing happens. She whistles again, followed by a third, and still, nothing happens. Her breaths are shaky and shallow as she struggles to put air into her lungs. The chill gripping at her feet is becoming unbearable now. Her body begins to tremble with paranoia as one thought gets louder and louder in her mind.

She’s going to die.

Ashe breaks into a cold sweat, clenching her hands into tight fists. Her heart feels like it’s going to explode from how fast it’s beating.

She’s going to die.

Darius floats to the ground slowly, but the green mist still swirls around his feet. He reaches his hand out and his axe flies into his grip. A devilish grin splits his face, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. 

“Oh,” he begins, his voice still inhumanely deep, “I’m done playing games, Angel.”

He leaps into the air with impossible speed, his axe poised to cleave her in half. Her instincts are screaming at her to do something—fling herself to the side as much as she can, summon another Hawk Spirit, something, _anything_ , but her body and mind refuse to listen.

The stained steel of Darius’ axe gleams menacingly in the red moonlight as he reaches the apex of his trajectory.

But he doesn’t come down.

It’s brief, but Ashe sees a flash of silver light cut through Darius’ body. A slight mechanical drum fills the air and she notices the grasp on her ankles loosen. She looks down and sees that she’s stepping on two piles of golden dust.

Ashe scrambles to pick up her bow. She pivots, and brings up a hand to shield her face as Darius suddenly comes down from the sky, demolishing the tombstone to dust with his axe.

Through the gaps of her fingers, Ashe sees a glowing woman suspended in air. Two blindingly white wings beat slowly behind her, as blades whirr and dance around the figure, her eyes gleaming with pure light.

A name flashes across Ashe’s mind.

Irelia.

“For the First Lands!” Irelia booms, her voice full of conviction as a hail of holy blades rain unforgivingly on Darius.

Darius lets out an ungodly scream as the sound of sizzling flesh fills the air once again. Countless wraith arms explode from the ground and coil around Darius, taking him into their embrace.

Ashe takes aim, but has no time to fire. Before she knows it, something pulls on her jacket collar, yanking her off of her feet with incredible strength. An arm tucks itself under Ashe’s legs, and another supports her back. A black-haired woman is carrying her, and it takes Ashe a moment to realize that it’s Irelia.

“Don’t struggle,” Irelia says. “You’re safe with me.”

Ashe has never seen this woman before, but she feels a vague feeling of yearning and overwhelming joy. The words slip past Ashe’s smiling lips before she knows it. “I know.”

Irelia gives her an unreadable look, but says nothing else.

Ashe looks over Irelia’s shoulder and watches as Darius and the cemetery quickly fades from view. She furrows her eyebrows, wondering how they got away so quickly, until she looks down and sees Irelia standing on her blades, using them to soar through the air.

“I can stand on my own on one of those swords,” Ashe points out.

Irelia’s voice is steady. “It’s fine. We’re almost at camp.”

Ashe takes a brief glance at the sky, and sees the Blood Moon overhead, shining its murky light over this particular dried portion of the prairie. Ashe thinks that it’ll be about four more hours until sunrise.

Ashe feels the air around her stop, followed by Irelia stepping off from her blade. Irelia sets down Ashe onto her feet, and takes a brief glance at her surroundings.

On the horizon, she sees the familiar, industrialized skyline of Angel’s Perch, one of the oldest towns in the Old West. First established to mark the border between Heaven and the first human settlers on the land, it was taken over by the settlers as their greed to expand westward grew and grew. Ashe has a feeling, deep in her soul, that was when the end began.

“How come you didn’t stay in Angel’s Perch?” Ashe looks over to see Irelia lighting up a campfire that had been snuffed out. “Isn’t there better cover there, compared to being in the middle of nowhere?”

“My partner and I set up a concealing field, in ‘bout a forty or so meter radius.” Irelia waves her hand and sees a shimmering, golden dome appear overhead. “Can’t risk being in Angel’s Perch. Too many people, so if the Demons found us, it’ll be trouble. Plus being out in the open gives us a better view. Can’t hide anywhere ‘round here, unless you know a thing or two ‘bout magic.”

Ashe takes a seat near Irelia, taking in the heat of the low campfire that began to burn. “That makes sense,” Ashe says, taking off her hat and setting it beside her. She notices Irelia staring at the golden feather decorating Ashe’s hat.

“You knew my name earlier,” Irelia says after a while, “but I don’t recall ever seeing you in Heaven.”

“Tonight’s the first time we’ve met. But I have memories of you.”

“…Memories?”

Ashe rolls up her sleeve to expose her right forearm. She extends her arm out to Irelia. Irelia comes closer, and her index finger traces the hair-thin lines on Ashe’s skin. Irelia traces up, then to the left, back down, to the right, and then back to where she started, forming a skinny rectangle.

“You’re artificial,” Irelia realizes as she takes back her hand. “Made from Celestial Steel.”

Ashe nods. “I was made near the end of Heaven, given life through the blood of both slaughtered gods and Angels. Unfortunately, I never met who made me; I never got to thank them for this life they’ve given me.”

Irelia hums in understanding. She pauses, and then adds, “So you…have memories? Of the Angels and gods that run inside of you?”

Ashe rolls down her sleeve and stares at the campfire. The orange flames are haunting in the light of the Blood Moon, but Ashe absently finds them beautiful nonetheless. “Depends. The memories appear when something triggers them. Like you, for example. Your name popped into my head when I saw you. Other things I’ve known since I’ve woken up, like the names Morgana and Kayle.”

“…I haven’t heard those names in a long time,” Irelia says. Her voice sounds distant, as if she’s stuck in the past. “I Fell from Heaven with Morgana. The Light that surrounded us vanished almost instantly, and then everything became dark. So, so dark…. All I have left is this”—she raises her right wrist, and Ashe notices Irelia is wearing a single golden feather that glimmers with Light, similar to the one Ashe has on her hat—”and a fraction of the power I used to have. I was so weak after I Fell; I went into hiding for years.”

“Why’d you come out of hiding?”

“My partner.” Irelia gestures to an unkempt sleepsack on the ground. “She was a human. I found her when she was dead. Killed, I think, by a Demon. Heart was ripped right from her chest. She should have turned; that’s how the Demons turn humans into their own. But the hole in her heart was glowing with Light.”

Ashe furrows her brow. “Is she…like me?”

“Not quite. See, her body is made up of Light, but her powers? They harness the Mist that Demons use. Her horse is made of the same Mist, too, kind of similar to yours. Saw it form in front of my eyes when she woke up, so it’s hers. She’s a hybrid, guess you could say.”

“A mix of the Light and Mist,” Ashe says with a smile. “Like the twilight sky.”

For the first time since they’ve met, Irelia chuckles. “Yeah. Kinda like that.”

“How long have you two been traveling?”

Irelia takes a moment to think. “Probably…a month or two. Not long at all.”

“Where is she right now?”

Irelia gestures off to the distance, away from the direction where the old town of Hope is. “Out there, probably hunting down Demons. We decided to split up tonight to cover as much area as we could. That’s how I found you.” Irelia gives Ashe a glance. “You’re lucky I got there when I did. You would have been dead.”

Ashe’s smile fades as her battle with Darius flashes across her mind.

“What were you doing there, anyways?” Irelia asks.

“Same as you two. I thought I would hunt down some minor Demon, see if they knew anything about Hecarim. I didn’t expect Darius to be there, though.”

“You knew him?”

Ashe winces as she recalls the night when Darius made the deal with Hecarim. “Acquaintances. He was helping me find Hecarim in order to hunt him down. In the end we found the Demon, but…”

“The human made a deal with the Demon,” Irelia finishes.

Ashe lets out a bitter laugh. “Common tale ‘round these parts, ain’t it.”

Irelia gives another long, drawn-out sigh. “Unfortunately.”

The exhaustion of the night hits Ashe. Her body feels sluggish, her eyes heavy with fatigue. She hides her yawn with her hand, tears beading in the corner of her eyes.

“You should rest. In the morning, my partner should be back and we’ll have a deeper discussion,” Irelia says. She places a warm hand on Ashe’s shoulder, and gives it a soft squeeze. Something familiar stirs deep with Ashe’s memory.

Ashe sets the feeling aside, and gives a nod of confirmation. She lays on her side, using her arm as a pillow.

The moment she closes her eyes, she falls into a deep slumber.

-X-

When Ashe opens her eyes again, she realizes she’s in a dream. Her surroundings are far different from where she used to be, in a place where she’s never been before; brightly colored with hues of gold and white, brilliant Light shining down. Here, night does not exist; it is an eternal paradise, full of the gods’ blessings.

Ashe feels her chest grow tight. She realizes she’s in Heaven.

She looks at the scattered piles of papers in front of her. She sees detailed sketches and diagrams, lines labeling complicated parts. She sees a map, and recognizes some of the towns labeled: Hope, Angel’s Perch. She stares at the map for a moment longer, and lets out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“When will the fighting cease?” She asks herself, the words slipping past her lips. Ashe’s voice isn’t her own; it’s thick with an accent, and heavy with despondency. “If only our forces could—”

A heavy door opens and closes behind her. She turns around and sees a woman with flowing gold hair, draped in a simple white himation, hemmed with yellow. A warm smile plays on the woman’s lips, and as she comes forward, a trail of blades follow right behind her.

Ashe recognizes her immediately. 

Irelia.

“What’re you doing here?” Ashe asks in her accented voice.

“I wanted to check on you, see how you were doing.” Irelia comes closer, much closer than she probably should have. Irelia’s eyes, a vibrant gold, studies Ashe’s face, and her warm smile melts into a small frown. “You’ve been overworking yourself again.”

“I have to. We’ve been losing horrifically at the fronts—”

Irelia places a warm hand on Ashe’s shoulder, and gives it a faint squeeze. 

“You should rest, Karma. Put your mind at ease; with me as a Commanding General, everyone will be safe.”

Ashe reaches out to cup Irelia’s face in her hands. Her own skin, Ashe realizes, is much tanner compared to Irelia’s pale complexion.

“I know.”

Irelia’s warm smile comes back. Her eyes gleam with warmth, and something stirs deep within Ashe’s chest. She’s never felt this before, and yet, she knows it far too well.

Love.

Suddenly, something heavy forms in her stomach, and the dream fades from view. Despite herself, Ashe feels tears welling up in her eyes.

Ashe realizes that was the last time Karma saw Irelia.


End file.
